Seal of Approval
by Motsie of Atlantis
Summary: Callen is ordered by Hetty to find a partner and form a team. He already owed his life to a Navy Seal who saved his butt when he was with the CIA. Could he overcome his fears of placing his life in the hands of this ex-Seal who was expected to have his back? Written for NCIS:LA Magazines Callen's Corner Challenge #4
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Written for NCIS:LA Magazines Callen's Corner Challenge #4

**Disclaimer:** As always, each and every character or place you may recognize is not owned or controlled by me. They get to come out and play with me for a short time, but have to be home by curfew.

**Seal of Approval**

**Chapter 1**

Callen sat at his desk in the bullpen of the Office of Special Projects. It was the only one occupied at the moment. Hetty Lange, the NCIS Operations Manager in Los Angeles, had appointed him to head up a team and ordered him to choose the people who would make it up. He had decided that he would interview the people and get a "vibe" on how well they could work with him before he would read their resumes. So far he had interviewed three people. Two of them had good resumes, the third's could even be classed as great. But he somehow had a gut feeling that none of these three would be able to become a person that he could make his teammate, much less a partner.

G. Callen didn't do partners. Every time he was partnered up on a CIA op, something eventually went wrong, and people ended up badly hurt or dead. The only one he ever worked with where things didn't blow up in his face was Leroy Jethro Gibbs, a former Marine who became his mentor at NCIS. Gibbs was now was NCIS Special Agent in Charge of the Major Case Response Team in Washington, DC., the team Callen was on before being reassigned to Los Angeles.

Callen was more of a lone wolf, and was very good at it. He had taught himself to speak Polish, Russian, German and Czech, so he could infiltrate almost any country in Eastern Europe. He was incredibly patient; put him next to a statue and you would swear that the statue would move first. And when he did move, it was like a ghost viewed out of the corner of your eye; now you see it, now it's gone, making you wonder if it really ever was there at all. He could take on almost any persona and pull it off without a hitch. Even, on that very rare occasion, when his cover was blown, he usually was able to save the mission.

But he is starting to wonder if he can save this mission that Hetty has given him. He is quickly running out of candidates. There are just two files left, and he is scheduled to meet with the next one in thirty minutes. As he leaves to go to the boat house, he wonders if this is just another attempt at futility.

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At the scheduled time, there is a knock on the door. Callen looks up and sees a huge black man who walks with the grace of a black panther. The agent goes over and shakes the offered outstretched hand. He could feel the power behind those fingers, power he knew could crush his hand so easily.

"Sam Hanna?" he asks and receives a nod of agreement. "My name is Callen. Sit down and tell me about yourself."

The big black man sits down on the other side of the table, his eyes looking Callen up and down as if he were the interviewer and not the interviewee.

"Please, just call me Sam. About me – there ain't much to tell you. Born and raised in Brooklyn. Family didn't have much money. Played some football in high school, but didn't get a college scholarship, so I enlisted in the Navy. Got out a little while ago and now am looking for a way to support myself. A friend from Naval Base San Diego told me he was putting my name in for a job. I got a letter describing the work in general and was told to come in for this interview."

The vibe that Callen was getting from this man was different from any person he had interviewed before. The closest person he could compare him to was Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Like him, Sam was a man of few words, obviously from the discipline he learned in the Navy.

"So, why'd ya quit the Navy?"

"Didn't say I quit. My time was up there, and I wanted to spend more of it with my wife."

"Honorable discharge?"

"Discharge?" he said with a laugh. "I suppose you could call it that. They just moved me from active duty to reservist, subject to call-up at any time. You never really get out."

"What did you do as a squid?"

Sam cocked his eyebrow and looked intently at the smaller man. _*__This guy served too,*_ he thought.

"I was a Seal, Senior Chief Petty Officer. What branch were you in"

"What makes you think I served?" Callen asked

"There are only two types of people who call Navy personnel squids, usually it is by those who themselves have served in some branch of the military..."

"And the other type?"

"People with a death wish who have no idea what they are talking about - and I didn't figure you to be one of those."

Callen snickered at that. "You figured right, I was a dogface and was there for 'Just Cause' in Panama." he told him, wondering if Sam would open up more and talk about some of his Seal activities.

"Well, if you know anything about Seals, you know that I can't talk about most of the prior operations that I was involved in. But if you need a reference about my Seal days, call Commander Steve McGarrett from Hawaii Five-0. He and I were in BUD/S together. But if you do, don't mention my name. Just tell him you want some info on the guy who hauled his sorry butt the last two miles on a training hike after he sprained his ankle trying to show off how well he could run backwards."

"You mind if I rub it in a little bit? I met Steve once while I was over in the Islands working on a drug case. He tried to get me to put on a Hawaiian dancer's outfit, you know, the kind with the coconut bra, and embarrass myself by doing the hula."

Sam shook his head, trying to get that image out of his mind as he let out a big belly laugh. "Nope. Go ahead. Just laugh a little bit and tell him his version of the story is complete BS, no matter what he tells you. Whatever he says or how hard he tries to defend himself, just keep telling him how full of it he is. That way he will know that I was the one to tell it to you in the first place."

With a smirk on his face, Callen said, "OK. I will do that." But then his face changed to a very serious look, with his blue eyes seemingly piercing to Sam's very soul. "Now I have one last question for you. Is this a job that you would want to do? Not just put in your time, maybe even a little extra effort, because it puts food on the table, but a job you would give your heart and your soul for?

Sam put his elbows on the table and folded his hands. He rested his forehead on his folded hands for a minute as he gathered his thoughts. Then he looked up at Callen. "I was a Seal. I pledged my whole life to goverment service. I pledged my soul to the members of my team. If I get this job, the only thing that I see changing is the uniform and the team members. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, it does, Sam." As the two men rose and shook hands, Callen walked with Sam to the door of the boat house. "I will personally get back to you in a couple of days. Thanks for coming in."

As Sam climbed into his Challenger, he waved at Callen and raised his voice just a little, "Thanks for the interview."

_*What a sweet ride,*_ thought Callen as Sam drove off. His choice of car was just another plus to top off the positive vibes that the agent got from the ex-Seal. He would have to read the resume and call Steve in Hawaii to see if there might be anything negative clinging to the record of Sam Hanna. If there was nothing glaring that stood out, he just might have found his partner.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

As Callen drove back toward the Mission, he heard the song "Big John" playing on the oldies station. He wondered if it was a sign from above, further urging him to take on Sam Hanna as his partner. He was amazed at how well the man that had sat across from him stacked up with the idealized one in the song.

Maybe Sam wasn't six foot six and weighed less than two forty five, but he was certainly broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip. From his comment about the type of people who called a Seal a "squid", Callen knew that he wouldn't take any lip from anyone whom he did not consider a friend.

From personal experience Callen knew how determined a Seal was to fully complete any mission given to him, no matter what the personal cost might be, and how fanatical each of them was to the unwritten orders that every one else comes home, even if he didn't.

The agent was anxious to read through Sam's resume and have the techs at OSP find out more about the man. He was kinda quiet and shy, not saying very much about himself in the interview. But that went with the territory of being a Seal and spoke volumes about the trustworthiness and quiet pride that could be heard every time Sam spoke of himself as a member of that elite group. Callen knew that the reason our Special Forces are the best at what they do is because they keep their mouths shut.

When he got back to the Mission, he picked up the folder with the information on Sam Hanna and started to read through it. He was surprised to find that it did not contain much more than he had already gotten from the man himself.

He just about jumped out of his chair when he felt Hetty's hand drop to touch his shoulder. _*I know I'm good at sneaking up on people,*_ he thought, _*but Hetty could give stealth lessons to ninjas.*_

"So, what do you think about the candidates so far, Mr. Callen?" she asked him, her eyes fixed on the file he had in his hands.

"I have found one who is a strong possibility" he replied, _*of course, you already knew that*_ was his unspoken thought that quickly followed. "I was wondering if one of the techs could run a more complete background check to give me some more information on him than what I already have."

"And which one would that be?" Hetty asked.

Callen knew that she very rarely asked a question to which she did not already know the answer. "Sam Hanna, the ex-Seal."

"You know that the Seals are as secretive as this office is. I do not know how much more information there is out there that can be found." the small woman declared.

"He gave me a reference from his days of Seal training, a Commander Steve McGarrett from Hawaii Five-0. I met Steve once when I was at DEA and worked a case that took me out to the Islands, but didn't really get to know him well. Have you ever had any contact with him?"

Hetty had a sly smile on her face. "You could say that, Mr. Callen. I am his godmother. Doris McGarrett and I worked together on a couple of ops when she was still active with the CIA."

"Why am I not surprised." Callen said, shaking his head and wondering if there was anyone whom Hetty did not know, was not related to, or did not work for that were major players in the intelligence community.

"I'll give him a call and get his take on Sam Hanna."

"I don't think you will hear anything that will change your mind, Mr. Callen.

Hetty was right. His call to Five-0 told him little more than that Steve considered Sam Hanna to be one of the most honest, loyal, and protective people he knew and that if Sam was not offered a job at OSP, Callen should just send him out to the Islands and Steve would hire him immediately for Five-0.

When Callen interviewed the last candidate later that afternoon, he found that he was comparing him to Sam Hanna. He and the other four interviewees did not even come close to matching the ex-Seal and the "good vibes" that he gave off in his interview. Sparse as it was, Sam's resume seemed so much better than all of the seemingly self-serving statements of the other four candidates. But there was still something bothering Callen that he couldn't go to Hetty and tell her why he couldn't approve of Sam Hanna as his choice for a partner.

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The following day Hetty found Callen sitting at his desk with just the one file folder in his hands. He kept opening the folder, reading a few lines, and then closing it up again. Hetty saw from his face that he was deep in thought. "Mr. Callen," she asked, "do I still sense some reluctance in your picking a partner, in particular, Mr. Hanna?"

"Hetty, you know I don't do partners well. I'll admit that he is the best one I have found so far and I should approve of him without a second thought. But I guess my biggest problem is that I don't want to have to watch out for someone besides myself, and I certainly don't want to have to have someone else be responsible for me."

Hetty's eyes seemed to bore right through him. "It's called 'trust', Mr. Callen. If you want to be here at OSP, you need to be part of a team. You need to learn how to trust the members of your team, as they will need to learn to trust you."

"I understand that Hetty. But it isn't easy. I owe my life to one Seal. At least I was told it was a Seal that had to extract me from Libya after my cover was blown. I never found out who he was, so that's a debt I can never repay. I don't want to have a string of IOUs on my life being held by anyone else."

"I don't seem to recall that being in your file." Hetty said, surprised that she might find out something new about her agent that was sure to end up in her "For Hetty's Eyes Only" files.

"It was a CIA operation that went south. I really don't think they want to be reminded of it. But you know that it never really happened, because if it did, there would be a report. So anything that I tell you is purely hypothetical, because the operation never happened and of course, I was never there."

"Ah, yes, I know those CIA non-operations well." the tiny lady mused.

So, hypothetically, Muammar al-Gaddafi was pushing for the idea of a United States of Africa to replace the African Union as early as 2000. People in CIA suits were wondering if he was trying to set up the whole of Africa more as a Soviet Union than a United States. Our country had unilateral sanctions against Libya at the time but the strategy was to remove them if Gaddafi would behave himself and become more pro-West. Actually I think it was the US oil companies that had a big hand in it, trying to get more oil imported into this country from Libya, because the sanctions were beginning to be lifted in 2004 and were completely gone two years later."

"I remember the problems we were having with him and oil deliveries to this country. He was trying to blackmail our country over the oil."

"Two CIA agents, Dave Jamison as Cyrek Jankowiak, a Polish oil pumping station engineer, and I as Miloslav Makarovich, a Russian oil pipeline contractor, were sent in to meet with one of the pro-West rebel groups. We were to try to find out if they might be more willing to deal with our country than the Gaddafi government was doing at the time. If we were to be successful, there might have been a US supported coup to help them seize power."

"I take it your mission was not successful, because, as I remember, there was no uprising at that time." Hetty responded.

"Not successful is putting it mildly." Callen said. "It was doomed from the start. The rebel group had been infiltrated by at least one government spy. We caught a flight out of Cairo and flew into Tripoli. Khaleel, our Libyan contact, met us in the airport baggage area and we were taken to a three story apartment building near the western edge of the city. I had a funny feeling when we went up to the third floor, but hell, maybe they knew something we didn't. We weren't there more than five minutes when the bomb went off.

"Was it a suicide bomber or was it just left there in the room waiting for you?" Hetty asked.

"To this day, I don't know, and I don't think anyone else is alive to be able to tell you, Hetty. Jamison was hunched over a table in the center of the room, going over a map with the rebels, since he was our Arab expert. Checking out the perimeter, I had just gone to one of the back windows that overlooked the alley. I remember thinking how much squalor there was down there, garbage, piles of what looked like camel or donkey dung, parts of rusted out cars. I was just starting to turn back to see at how negotiations were going. When I had just spotted Jamison in the corner of my eye the bomb went off, killing all of them around the table and blowing me out of the window down into that crap in the alley." Hetty could see the sadness in his face as he seemed to be reliving the senseless deaths of the people in that room.

"You were lucky to survive the blast, Mr. Callen." He could hear the genuine concern that was in Hetty's voice.

"I didn't think so at the time." Callen started rubbing a long jagged scar on his upper right arm. "I couldn't hear anything because of the blast. I had a concussion, multiple cuts all over my back because of the busted glass that I landed on, and part of the wooden window frame imbedded in my arm. I must have blacked out for a while, because the next thing I knew it was night. Sometime even later that night, I felt intense pain in my arm as Khaleel pulled the piece of wood out of my arm and tried to bandage it with a torn off piece of cloth. He had come back to see if there was anyone left alive and must have heard me moaning in the alley."

Hetty had a puzzled look on her face as she asked, "How did you know he wasn't the spy?"

"At that point, I really didn't care one way or another. I asked him if he could get me to the safe house on Al Fat'h Street near the harbor. Safe house, hell, it was just an old warehouse with a small cellar dug out on one end. Khaleel got me there and tried to make me comfortable. I told him to get the hell out of there, that I would wait until I could get picked up. According to the operational plans, I knew that it would take another three days before we were supposed to check in and another two days beyond that before we would be first listed as missing. I didn't even know if they would send anyone to pick me up, but hell, I wasn't going anywhere, not in the condition I was in."

"How long did you have to wait there?"

"I really have no idea, Hetty. Between the concussion and the fever that was raging through my body from the infected wound on my arm, I was probably more unconscious than I was awake. And when I was awake, I couldn't believe if what I was seeing was real. I honestly thought that I saw a half gallon of ice cream in that cellar, sitting right out there in the open, with a great big spoon in it, just begging me to eat it, in one of my more lucid moments.

The two of them had a slight chuckle over that thought.

"I do know that when I finally came back to reality, I was in the sick bay of a US destroyer from the Sixth Fleet, carrying me back to a hospital in Naples, Italy. I was told that a Navy Seal had gone in, kept me from being captured, and got me out. I have no memories of any of that. But then they also told me that I owe him my life." Callen almost had a look of despair on his face.

"And why is that a problem for you, Mr. Callen?" now starting to have some big concerns about her choice for her agent in charge.

"Don't you get it, Hetty?" Callen got up, started to pace and wave his arms around. "This is a debt I can never repay. I owe some Seal my life, and I have no clue who he is. The CIA seems to have no record of it if it isn't in my files and the Seals won't ever admit to having one of their members run a secret mission into a foreign country, especially if it was to extract an agent that might have started a revolution. There is no way I am ever going to find out who it was, so there is no way I can ever repay that debt that I owe him. He will be holding an IOU claim on my life forever."

"Perhaps the way to repay it would be to approve of Mr. Hanna to be your partner. He may not be the same Seal, but if you have his back and protect him as well as your Seal did for you, you could consider that some sort of payback. Just something to think about, Mr. Callen." And with those words, Hetty walked away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 **

**A/N:** Sorry this chapter is so long, but Sam's a big guy, and Michelle wanted you all to know what kind of man she fell in love with and married.

"Chelle, are you home?" Sam's deep voice echoed through the house

"In the kitchen, Sam." he heard his wife say. He went into the kitchen and found Michelle cutting up vegetables for supper.

He grabbed an uncut carrot and sat down to eat it. "Where are the girls?" he asked.

She looked at him with a foxy smile on her face. "No school tomorrow, so the two of them are spending the night at my mother's. We will have the whole house to ourselves."

"Mmmm. Nice." He got up, and walked around the island and grabbed her from behind and proceeded to kiss her neck.

"Sam, stop that" she smacked his hands lightly with the flat side of the chef's knife. "Unless you don't want to eat at all tonight."

"You making stir-fry tonight?" he asked.

"Just for you, Hun. I have to use up that chicken we had the other night. By the way, could you pull it out of the fridge."

"Yes dear," Sam said as he went over and did what his wife asked. "Although with the kids gone and us having the house to ourselves all night, I can think of some better things that I would like to sink my teeth into, as he pushed her top aside and started nibbling gently on her upper arm, outside the bra strap where it wouldn't show."

Michelle picked up a carrot stick and shoved it into his mouth and pointed back to the chair on the other side of the island. "Boy, aren't you frisky tonight. Your interview must have really gone well. I, on the other hand, need to put some food into me, so I can keep up with you all night. So don't keep me in suspense any longer, how did your interview go. Or is it some national secret that you can't divulge, and if I ever find out you're going to have to kill me with love and affection?"

"It went pretty good, I think. The guy that interviewed me was an ex-serviceman. He said he was in the Army and served in 'Operation Just Cause'. I kinda wish I could have seen under his black tee shirt though."

"Why? Isn't this fine black body good enough for you, that you have to go after some guy?" Michelle teased him, taking a step back and striking a model's pose.

Sam got up, went behind her, and started running his hands down her sides until they were at her hips. Then he turned her around and gave her a very passionate kiss and started nuzzling her neck. "You know that I only have eyes for you, I would never choose a guy over this fine female body that I've got right here, especially some white, skinny-butt guy like Callen."

"Then why would you want his shirt off?" his wife continued to tease him.

"I wanted to see if he had a scar on his upper right arm. He looks so strangely familiar, like I should know who he is. Closest I could figure out is that he would have been a colleague of yours."

"Mine?" she asked with a puzzled look on her face.

"Yeah, when I was in the Seals, we once had a mission where we had to go rescue two CIA agents out of Tripoli, Libya."

"You never told me about that."

"Like you've told me about all the CIA ops that you have been on?" he said, sort of sarcastically.

"Touche." She said to him as she threw the vegetables into the wok, stirring them while she looked at him with a more serious look. "You want to tell me about it?"

"I don't even remember what year it took place. Those years we served in the Med just all seem to run together. Two CIA agents were sent into Libya to meet with one of the pro-West rebel groups. I guess they were trying to see if the sanctions against Libya should be removed and we could work with the government of Muammar al-Gaddafi, or if we should push him aside and support one of the rebel groups in staging a coup."

Michelle thought back on those years and said, "I'm just glad that I didn't have to get involved in that, it was a man's game in North Africa then. Women were seen and not heard. If they spoke up or did something without a man telling them to do it, they were never heard from again."

"Yeah, I know." Sam replied. "Nothing much has changed there. But eastern Europe, where you were working, was no picnic either."

Michelle threw the chicken into the wok and added some sesame oil. "Hun, go get some wine and I'll plate this up and we can eat while you finish your story."

"Yes dear," Sam said as he went to get the wine. He returned with two bottles, a white which he set out on the island and a red that he placed in the refrigerator. "Chardonnay OK for you with the meal?" he asked his wife.

"Perfect," she answered, as Sam pulled the cork from the bottle of white wine. "What's the red one for?"

"We might find it necessary when I continue the story after dinner. I don't want to spoil a good meal with the story I have to tell you" was his answer.

Their meal was spent in the eating of food, drinking of wine, and the everyday banter that two parents normally have, what the kids did at home and at school, chores that need to be done, shopping that needed to be taken care of. After the meal, Sam helped Michelle clear the table, and put the empty wine bottle in the recycling while she rinsed the dishes and set them in the dishwasher.

"You want me to open up the Madeira?" Sam asked. "No, Hun, I'm good. I had enough wine at dinner. I'll just have a cup of coffee."

Michelle watched Sam get two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator and set them on the coffee table as he dropped into the corner of the couch where he normally sat. She knew that this conversation was not going to be good. She set her coffee down on the table and sat, with her legs folded up under her, in the other corner of the couch facing him, waiting for him to continue his story.

An extremely painful expression came over Sam's face as he opened the first bottle of beer and drank about a quarter of the bottle before setting it back on the table. Michelle wanted to go over to him and wrap him in her arms to comfort him, but she knew he had to get all the way through the story, or it would just come back to haunt him over and over. That was one of the major problems of working these clandestine missions, no matter what agency it was for. No one ever considered the long term consequences of having to deal with the secret actions and information once you were out. She had Sam to talk to, and he had her, but what about those poor people out there who were alone. With whom they could talk and unburden their souls? To live in constant, continual torture like that, Michelle didn't even want to think about how bad a life that could be.

Sam finally took his eyes off the beer bottle and looked at her. "We knew from the beginning that it wasn't going to be an easy mission. Master Chief called Gregg Norris and me into his office and asked us if we were fully up on our advanced first aid skills. Gregg looked at me and we both shrugged our shoulders, wondering what was up. Master Chief knew that we both were the most proficient members of the team in first aid. We also were the two members of the team that were the most fluent in Arabic."

"We were told we might have a mission. Master Chief said that nobody knew anything for sure, just that there were two CIA agents that were in Libya and they were overdue in reporting in. We had no idea if they were alive or dead. We were to go in country and check out the two safe houses to see if they were holed up there. We were to avoid capture at all costs, because the Navy would disavow any ties we had to the service. They couldn't afford to having two active duty Seals being caught in a foreign country with whom we were not at war. That in itself would be an international incident with god knows what kind of repercussions. The CIA would use other means to see if their two agents had been captured or killed."

Michelle nodded her head and said, "That sounds like their usual way of working."

Sam continued, "Gregg and I were to split up, he was to check one safe house and I the other, see if the agents were there, get them if they were, and then get them out without anyone knowing either they or we had ever been there. We went in that night, a zodiac taking us to a fishing trawler. Just before dawn we hit the dock area of Tripoli and each went our own way. Gregg's was closer, so he was going to check it out and then meet up with me at the second one."

"You didn't run into any patrols, or police?" his wife asked.

"There were the usual patrols, but it was getting near dawn when their shifts would change, so we doubted whether they would be paying much attention to their jobs. More likely they would be looking forward to going home or back to the barracks and having a meal and going to bed. I think I ran into two patrols, but I easily avoided them and found the warehouse that doubled as the CIA safe house. You need to tell your bosses that they should spend a little more money to hide people. This safe house was nothing more than a hole in the floor, maybe ten feet square, with an empty crate as the entrance."

Sam stopped there, picked up the open beer and drained it. Michelle knew this next part was really going to be hard for him to relate to her. She made a mental note to be extra loving and comforting for him when they went to bed later that night, because he was really going to need it.

Sam turned to look at his wife, his eyes starting to mist over as he continued. "I found one of them, Chelle. He looked like he had gone through hell. I checked him out, but I knew that we couldn't extract him later that night. There was no possible way. The guy had a concussion and was being eaten up with fever from an infected wound on his upper right arm. God, Chelle, he must have been in that hole for a while, because maggots were eating away all over that open wound. He had a lot of smaller cuts all over his back, some of them still had glass in them. It looked like he was thrown down onto a bed of glass shards. I tried talking to him in English, but he just kept moaning and mumbling, in Russian no less. I didn't know what language it was, of course, because I hadn't met you yet, but I was really starting to wonder if he was really one of ours."

"I got to teach you some different words if you are going to be dealing with Russian agents." she said.

"Maybe. Anyway, Gregg came back and said the other safe house was clear. He looked at our friend and confirmed my estimate that it would take at least two days before the agent would be up for any form of travel. We worked it out that he would go back to the trawler and contact Master Chief and have him forge an invoice to move a crate out of the warehouse we were in. Three days from now, the agent and I would be sealed in one of the crates and the trawler would deliver us to the ship. If this wasn't possible, he would get back to me the next day with the new plan. He left me his first aid kit, an extra flashlight, and some food and all his extra water and went to hide out the rest of the day in the other safe house before heading to the trawler later that evening."

"I tried to take care of the agent. Gregg told me that the warehouse was in a pretty deserted area of town, but I still couldn't take any chances with the agent screaming in pain. I laid a tongue depressor across his teeth, made a small ball gag out of a bandage roll and shoved that in his mouth, and then taped a piece of plastic over the bottom part of his face. I waited a short time to see if he could still breathe through his nose, then laid him on his left side and held him as tight as I could while I poured alcohol into that open wound on his arm. I heard the tongue depressor crack as he screamed. God, how he screamed. If I hadn't tried to silence him, people a mile away would have heard him. But the sounds only carried a couple of feet. It damn near tore me apart, but I knew it had to be done. The maggots started dropping off and I began to see just how ragged a hole he had in his arm. Normally I would have tried to sew it up, even if the seams would never look pretty. But I saw what looked like wood splinters still in there and thought it would be best to wait until he could get someone better than a battlefield medic to look after him. I just held him tight, letting him know that someone was there to help him, while it sounded like he was cursing me out in several different languages."

"You know you had to do it." Michelle said. "You know that sometimes you have to go through pain before you can start to heal."

Sam shook his head as he looked at her. "Yeah, Chelle, but the pain was his, not mine, and I was the one inflicting it on him. Master Chief had told us that neither of the agents were allergic to sulfa or cillin drugs. I sprinkled some sulfa powder on the wound, causing another short scream from him, then I put a gauze pad over it and tied it off with a loose bandage. I got him to sit up for a few minutes and gave him some penicillin and water. That is what he needed the most. He wanted to drink all the water, but I had to cut him off before he drank too much and would just heave it up again."

"Every time I did something, I kept talking to him, telling him softly how I was trying to help him. I don't know if it was the concussion, or the fever that kept him from understanding me. He continually was talking in other languages, as if he had never heard of English. I got him back on his side and started to check his back to pull out the pieces of glass that were still imbedded in his back. I pulled out somewhere between twenty-five and thirty pieces of glass from his back. He flinched in pain over every piece that I had to dig out. He finally passed out, but his dreams gave his no respite from the pain that switched to attacking his mind instead of his body. He didn't cry out, but his thrashing about with his arms and legs and the look of agony that stayed on his face told me that he must have gone through hell and back to have such nightmares."

"I don't see how you could have done anything more for him." Michelle said, trying to comfort him.

"But the simple fact is, Chelle, he didn't know I was trying to help. Everything I did was causing him pain. If he would have been a Seal, he would have understood. It's not that we can accept pain more than other people, but we understand how to put that pain in the back of our mind. It doesn't make it hurt any less, but we look at the total picture, why we are suffering the pain and what is the final outcome, not just to us, but to everyone involved. He was suffering the pain, but couldn't see the final outcome. I could see the final outcome, but I wasn't suffering the pain, in fact, I was administering all of his pain. He knew it, and he must have hated me so much for what I did."

"And it wasn't just that one time. I had to do the same damn thing the following day, and the day after that if I was going to bring a live agent home with me. And each day it ended up with him cursing me out in other languages and trying to pull away from me. But that wasn't even the worst part of what I did to him."

Sam grabbed the other bottle of beer, opened it and downed at least half before he set it back on the table. Michelle moved over next to him, put her head on his shoulder and draped her arm around his neck and slowly started to rub the side of his temple to try to comfort him.

"It's OK, Hun, you were just trying to help him and keep him safe." she whispered softly.

"I was so stupid when I sent Gregg off that first day, and it damn near cost the agent his life." he exclaimed.

"Why?" Michelle asked. "You were with him, weren't you? Did he have a heart attack or a reaction to the antibiotics?"

"No, I almost killed him." Sam said quietly.

"What?" his wife asked. "I don't believe it. You couldn't have been that upset with him not understanding you..."

Sam interrupted her. "It wasn't that. Everything was going according to plan. Except I didn't think the plan out well enough. The invoice was forged so the crate could be moved out of the warehouse. We were sealed into the crate. Both of us were sitting down. I was behind the agent resting against the back of the crate and his body was resting up against mine. His hands and legs were bound together loosely so I could use mine to keep him from thrashing them around."

Sam shook his head as he remembered how it went down. "I should have know. How was I so stupid as to not see it."

"Not see what?"

"His mouth. He was unconscious when we were sealed up in the crate. I just assumed that he would stay that way while we were being moved. He didn't. I should have asked Gregg to bring me some sort of sedative that I could have used to keep him asleep. I know he was out when we were loaded on the truck. Maybe it was the bouncing around that made him come out of it. I just don't know. I heard him starting to moan just about the same time as I heard someone, maybe the port police, telling our driver to stop and show his papers. And what would those papers say? 'That a crate of machinery had somehow become alive and was moaning in pain.' I don't think they would have believed that."

"So what did you do," she asked, "put your hand over his mouth? I hardly see how that could possibly kill him."

Sam picked up the bottle and drained the remaining beer from it. He looked at it as if there should have been more left, but then set it back down on the coffee table. He turned and looked directly at Michelle and said, "Maybe I should have done that. He might have understood that gesture. But I didn't even think of that. I used a judo hold on him, the shime-waza."

"I've never heard you use that name before. What type of hold is that?"

"That's because it's so dangerous if it isn't applied just right. It's also called a sleeper hold. You put your arm around the neck of a person and compress the carotid arteries and jugular veins on both sides of the neck. If you have the inside of your elbow just a little bit away from the throat, he can still breathe while you are stopping the blood flow to the brain and getting him to pass out. If it is properly applied, it can lead to unconsciousness in a matter of a few seconds. But if the victim struggles at all, it could turn into a choke hold, or if you hold it too long and keep the blood from the brain, the person could suffer a stroke or be brain injured."

"So how do you know when to release it?" she asked.

"You have to watch the person you're doing it to. Watch when his body goes slack, when the muscles in the arms and legs relax. And you just can't do that when you're shut up in a box with no light and afraid to make any kind of noise for fear that it would be opened and your mission would be blown. I'm just afraid I held it too long, Chelle. And I'm even more afraid that I don't really know why I held it that long. You know the Seal code that every one else comes home, even if you don't. I honestly don't know if I held it that long to make sure that he came home, or if I was just protecting my own ass."

"I know I didn't kill him, or let's just say I didn't end his life there on the docks. I could feel his heart still beating, but I didn't know if I had given him a stroke and paralized him, or injured his brain. We stayed cooped up in that crate as we were moved onto the trawler. Since we still could be boarded and searched, we didn't get out until we were transferred to the ship. The agent was taken right away to sick bay. When I asked about how he was, I was told that he never existed and no one knew what I was talking about."

"So you never found out if he made it or not?"

"To this day I have no idea of what happened to him. That's why I wanted to see Callen's upper right arm, to see if he had a scar there, to see if he was that agent I pulled out of Libya."

"And if he is, then what?" she wondered out loud.

"Then I go looking for a new job. I'll tell him how sorry I am for all the pain that I inflicted on him. Tell him that if he wants to pound the shit out of me, I won't raise a finger to defend myself. Then, when he's done with me, I'll just walk away and hope that somehow, someday, he might be able to forgive me for what I did to him and not hate me anymore."

Michelle looked at her husband and saw how much his telling of this story had taken out of him. She kissed him on the cheek and told him, "You aren't going to be able to do anything about it tonight, dear. You go on to bed. I'll clean up here and join you in a couple of minutes."

"Yes dear," Sam replied, but his words didn't have the spark that they normally did.

They both got up, Sam going off to the bedroom, while Michelle picked up her coffee cup and the two beer bottles and tops. She poured the remaining cold coffee down the drain and rinsed out the cup. Leaving everything on the sink, she turned out the light and went to follow her husband.

She found him in bed already asleep, curled up in almost a full fetal position, with a wet spot on the pillow from the tears that he had keep inside while he was unburdening his soul. Trying to think of what she could do to help this man that she loved so much, she turned off the light on the bedside table, climbed under the covers, and clung to him as close as possible so that he would know that she was there to help him face whatever their future would hold.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 **

The following morning, Michelle received a cryptic phone call. A male voice she had not heard in years, spoke to her and said, "Two, three, seven, five, nine, nine, one."

She responded with the second half of the code, "Seven, three, one, nine, three, three, two".

The male voice went on, "Confirmed. Today. 10:30 AM. Menotti's Coffee Stop on Windward Ave in Venice. Get it to go, then walk out onto the beach."

Michelle repeated everything, then hung up and proceeded to call her mother. "Mom, can you keep the kids through lunch? There is something I need to do this morning."

Telling her husband that she was going to do some clothes shopping for their older girl, Michelle parked off on a side street and proceeded to make her way to the coffee shop. As she waited for her small late, she wondered why her handler would suddenly activate her again. She was supposed to be retired. How could she go on an op when she had two kids at home? She would have to tell the contact that she would have to refuse the mission.

Michelle was now going into agent mode and started actively to look for her contact. When she got about ten feet onto the sand she felt that there was someone walking alongside her. She had never noticed the small woman before and wondered if she had just appeared like a magician's assistant, but without the puff of smoke. She turned and said to the woman, "Whatever you want me to do, I am retired. I am not going out on another mission."

The small woman grabbed her hand and said to her, "Mrs. Hanna, I am not here in any professional capacity. What I need to speak to you about is something personal."

Michelle had an astonished look on her face as she asked, "Then why did I get an official phone call from my superiors setting up this meet?"

She was even more astonished by the woman's answer, "My name is Henrietta Lange, but please call me Hetty. I was once in the same organization as you were and, like you, I have retired from that organization. I had to have my people do a lot of digging to find out who you really were and then had to call in several favors to get in contact with you."

The younger woman couldn't believe it. Her CIA training immediately focused in on threat assessment. She knew that the size of the person did not always equate to the size of the threat, and this small woman at her side was starting to set off all sorts of warning alarms in her brain. "You have people who can find out who I am, and you have favors you can call in to get in contact with me, and you say it is personal? What did I ever do or not do to you, that you have made this personal?"

Hetty tried to explain why she had gone to such lengths to reach her. "You didn't do anything. It is who you are. Your husband is up for a job as an agent at NCIS here in Los Angeles."

Michelle became even more wary of this little woman. Who was she, that she knew intimate things about her family? Was this small lady somehow threatening to get to her through her husband...and what about her daughters? If she knew about Sam, she also had to know about the girls. She looked at the older woman and asked in an icy tone, "And you know this how?"

Hetty answered, "Because I am Operations Manager of the Office of Special Projects at NCIS, the person to whom your husband would report if he receives this job."

Michelle was starting to become angry. Sam should be able to get the job or be rejected on his own qualifications, not the person to whom he was married. Her anger was not concealed as she spat out the words, "Are you here to tell me why my husband will not get the job? If it is because I was also a federal agent you can cross that reason off your list. I have retired so that we can take care of our family."

"Quite the contrary, my dear. Everything that I have seen and heard about your husband assures me that he would make an excellent agent to work with. I am here to try to make sure that happens."

Michelle's anger quickly was replaced with total confusion. This woman wanted Sam for this job. But somehow Michelle was supposed to be involved in the process. It didn't make any sense at all. "Please explain for me," she asked of Hetty, "what would prevent that from happening?"

"Not what, my dear, but who. Mr. Callen, the one whom I have chosen to be the leader of the team. I am afraid he might not approve of your husband because he is a Seal. He is torn up with guilt because a Seal once saved his life in Libya and he couldn't repay that debt he thinks he owes him."

Michelle was dumbfounded. She could hardly get the words out as she asked, "In Libya, you said...a Seal?"

"Yes, that is what I said, why do you ask." Hetty questioned.

Michelle started to laugh so hard she spilled all of her late. She saw the look of displeasure on Hetty's face and broke out into even more laughter.

Hetty did not enjoy being laughed at. In a very stern voice she started to scold, "Mrs. Hanna, I don't think that guilt like that is something to laugh about."

Michelle had finally suppressed her laughter down to the slightly audible giggle stage. "I'm sorry, Hetty. I'm not laughing at his guilt. It's not that at all. You only know the half of it. Was your team leader working for the CIA at the time?"

Now it was Hetty's turn to be confused. "How would you know that? Wait..." It was like a light bulb going off over Hetty's head. "Mr Hanna...?" A huge grin came across Hetty's face and she had to fight hard to keep from breaking out in laughter herself.

"Oh, yes, Sam was that Seal," Michelle admitted. "And you know what the worst part about all this is? Sam is so torn up with guilt about what he had to do to help save your team leader's life that he was honestly wondering if he could work with someone who hated him so much."

Hetty's confusion deepened. "I don't understand, why would Mr. Callen hate your husband when he saved his life?"

Michelle's voice took on a very serious tone as she explained, "Because of all the pain Sam had to put him through to get him ready to travel. Sam told me about it last night and it sounded pretty bad. He said that, Agent Callen is it?, was cursing him out in several different languages that he did not recognize, as he tried to take care of his wounds."

Hetty tried to picture in her mind the scene of those two men in that safe house half a world away. "Mr. Callen has had a very, shall we say, "nontraditional", upbringing. I would imagine the concussion and fever that was affecting him caused him to go back to his childhood Romani language or maybe the Russian that was his cover language at the time. I seriously doubt if he was cursing out your husband. It is more likely that he did not recognize who your husband was or even realize that he was just trying to help him."

Michelle was just shaking her head. She turned toward the smaller woman with a big smile on her face and said, "Well, you know how boys are, always arguing about who has the biggest one. It's just that these big boys are worried who has the biggest guilt complex. So, Hetty," she asked, "how are we going to make this happen for the two of them?"

The two women then spent the next ten minutes calculating their various options, adding and eliminating different things, until they both were in full agreement.

When they were done, Hetty looked at Michelle and reminded her, "This meeting never happened. Neither you nor I were ever here. We have complete plausible deniability."

Michelle looked at small woman, and put on her "puzzled grin" agent's face, as she started to walk away, "Meeting? I have no idea what you are talking about. I was shopping this morning. I don't even know who you are, lady, and I have never ever been in Venice Beach, never been there, never...ever. That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0

**Later that afternoon in the Hanna house.**

Sam came into the kitchen and gave his wife a kiss on the cheek "Well, the girls are back home and upstairs playing. They really enjoyed their sleep over with your parents last night."

Michelle put down the food she was preparing, washed and dried her hands and sat down on one of the chairs by the dining room table. "Sam, I really need to talk to you about last night." she said, as she patted the chair next to her, wanting him to sit close by.

"OK, Chelle, what about last night?" Sam looked a little apprehensive. He knew that she had planned for a romantic evening with him, and he really spoiled it with the story he told her that drew all the emotion out of his body and the romantic feelings out of hers. He didn't even know what time she had crawled into bed with him.

"Sam, do you love me, really love me, do-anything-that-I want-or-need type of love me?" she asked him.

"Of course I do, Chelle. Where is this going?" _*Here it comes*_, he thought. _*I must really be in trouble for upsetting her plans.*_

"Just stick with me for a bit. Do you love our oldest daughter, really love her do-anything-that-she-wants-or-needs type of love her?" Michelle continued her line of strange questions.

"Chelle, you're starting to scare me. You know that I love both the girls and would do anything for either of them." Sam responded.

"I'm not saying you don't. I just want to prove a point. OK?" She reached out her hand to rub his arm, trying to let him know that there was nothing to fear. "I still don't see where you are going with this, but, all right, I take it there is more."

Now, take a trip with me into the future. Our daughter is twenty-five years old, married, and nine months pregnant. You still love her, right?"

Sam sat up straight and said to her, a little louder than before, "Of course, I do, how could you ask..."

"Are you going to let her have the baby?" Michelle asked, looking him straight in the eye.

"What! Why wouldn't I? Chelle?...," total confusion now registered on Sam's face. Why would she ask him such a question?

Michelle continued, "Even if I tell you that no man can ever know how much pain and hurt a woman goes through with labor and delivery of a child, you would allow your daughter, whom you say you love, to go through all that pain and suffering?"

"But the outcome is so worth it." Sam responded. "You have told me that a woman forgets all that pain the moment she sees her child for the first time."

Michelle pulled her hand back and placed both of them in her lap. This was going to be the difficult part. Would he see? Would he understand? "Last night you were talking as if only Seals could endure pain that way. You said that for Seals it doesn't take away the hurt, they see the total picture and the final outcome for all involved, not just for them. I went through all of that giving birth to the girls, Sam. Your daughters will go through the very same thing if they have children. And guess...what...we are not Seals.

Sam raised his both his hands, with the palms outward toward his wife to defend his position, "But that's not the same thing." he said.

"OK, Sam," she said. "Let's take it one step further. Your daughter is still pregnant, but for some reason, she just can't go through the birth process. She needs to have a C-section. You going to let her have her child that way? Are you going to allow somebody to use a knife on her, cut her wide open, and pull that baby out of her? Are you going to hate the doctor that did it to her? Or do you think she will hate the doctor, even though she's going to be in pain, pain that will last longer than any regular delivery would? Or are you both going to thank the doctor for using all of his or her skills, even though it might have hurt like hell, for doing the job that only they could do?

"Of course I wouldn't hate them," Sam admitted to her.

"Then why would you think this CIA agent would hate you? You did your job. You did it to the best of your ability. And sometimes there is pain involved." She lowered her voice just a little as she continued, "When my grandfather had his heart attack, the EMT that did chest compressions on him broke a couple ribs. But Grandpa was so glad to be alive he didn't worry about the pain from broken ribs. The man did his job."

"But Chelle..." he said, even though he knew that she was right.

"No buts, Sam Hanna." Her voice was the same one that she used to give orders to their children. "When you get offered this job, you are going to go in there and show them the man you really are, not who you fear someone may think you are. You will do your job to the best of your ability. I'm sure that they will see the kind, gentle person that I know and love. Michelle wondered if she really blew it by saying "When" and not "If" you get offered the job.

"But what if they don't." Sam asked

She was so glad that he did not notice her mistake. She just continued as if it never happened. "And if they don't, then the job is not worthy of you and I don't expect you to stay in a job that is beneath your dignity.

"Yes dear," was all Sam had to say, as he wondered how he ever managed to find a wife so loving and wise.

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0

**At the same time over at OSP**

Callen had come back from lunch and sat at his desk in the bullpen. He was writing reports on the candidates he felt would not work at all in his team. Suddenly Hetty appeared at his side. He knew what she wanted to talk to him about, but he waited until she started to speak. "Mr. Callen, have you thought any more about the debts you owe and ways to repay them?"

"I know we talked about it, Hetty. But it doesn't change the facts. I owe my life to that Seal. I don't know who he is. He has an IOU claim on my life." Callen said, with a bit of desperation in his voice.

"OK, let us say that your Seal has a claim on your life." Hetty acknowledges.

"But he does, Hetty."

"I give you that. Who else has an "IOU claim on your life", as you call it, Hetty asked.

"I don't understand. What do you mean by that?" Callen wanted to know.

"You said that Khaleel came back and found you , pulled the piece of wood from your shoulder and got you to the safe house. Correct?" Hetty asked.

"That is what I told you," Callen said, somewhat confused.

"Would you have died there in that alley, or at least been captured, if he would not have come back to help you?" Hetty continued.

"If I was captured I would probably have been killed, and if I was left there I would almost certainly have died. Callen admitted.

"So Khaleel also has an IOU debt on your life. Did you even thank him?"

"No. I just told him to get the hell out of there." Callen was forced to admit.

"What about the captain of the trawler, who risk his life, his boat, and the lives of his crew to rescue you, does that captain and his crew members have an IOU debt on your life? And did you find a way to repay them?"

"I guess they all do, and no I didn't." Callen could no longer face the small woman. He was beginning to understand what she was getting at.

"When they got you on board the ship, the surgeons that worked on you had an IOU claim on your life. I would imagine that you thanked them. But what about the others that were in the operating room that helped them? The anesthesiologist, surgical nurses, instrument nurses, on down to the scrub nurses and surgical technicians. They all have an IOU debt on your life. How about the engine room crew that kept power going to the operating room. Each and every one of them own a piece of your life. Have you repaid any of these debts?"

Callen didn't say anything. He just hung his head in shame and shook it, giving her the "no" answer she expected.

"Don't you get it, Mr. Callen? These are all debts that you can never repay. And no one needs or even wants you to try. At least not in the way that you are looking at it. You see it as if it were some sort of balance scale, where everything has to be in equilibrium. It is not."

"Then what is it Hetty? It seems that all you have done is deepen my despair over not being able to repay the people I owe." Callen said, dejectedly.

"Tell me, Mr. Callen, do you expect to be repaid by every person that you help or just by every one that you save?" Hetty asked.

Callen looked at her, puzzled and confused. "I don't expect to be repaid at all."

"Even if a person would incur an IOU on their life that you would hold, would you expect repayment or even a thank you?"

"No. I couldn't do that to them.' He answered.

"And what would be the reason for that?"

"That's who I am. That's what I do. I don't expect to be repaid for just doing my job"

"But you have to decide which one it is Mr. Callen." Hetty continued to press him. "Is it who you are or just a job. Would you do it even if you didn't work here? Or can you turn it off when the day is done and you go home for the night?"

"I would like to think, Hetty. that it would be what I would do because it would be part of my makeup. Maybe not in the same capacity, maybe not to the same extent. But I don't think I could go past someone who was in trouble and not stop and help them."

"So, it is not just a job for you?" she asked again.

"No. it's not just a job." was his answer.

"Then what do you think motivates all those other people that I mentioned, the ones that have a claim on your life, as you put it? Do you think that it is just a job for them, something for which they need to be repaid? Or do you think that is an essential part of their makeup, as it is yours?

"I guess that is what they are made of," Callen was forced to admit.

Each and every one of them is a part of a team. Not a one of them can do everything the team can do. Pull one out and the team is weakened exponentially. Pull more out and before you know it there is no team and nothing will work. I hired you so that you can teach your partner all your skills, learn from your partner all the skills that he brings to the table, and together, the two of you will mesh your lives so that you can work together, each knowing that the other has your back, no questions asked, each trusting the other to do the right thing, even without speaking, confident that you know what is going to be done at the same moment your partner does. Do you remember me talking about this when I first interviewed you for the Senior Agent in Charge position at OSP?" Hetty asked him.

"I remember that, Hetty." he said.

"Do you remember what your answer was then?" "I know, I told you that I could do it." He answered her. "But I never expected it to be this hard."

Nothing good is easy, Mr. Callen.

She started walking off toward her office. Before she left the bullpen area, she turned around and spoke in a very clipped voice, "You have a deadline of noon tomorrow to decide who will be your partner here at OSP," she declared.

"And if I don't meet your deadline?" Callen asked.

"Then I will have to decide which of the two options I would have to follow." She said as she ticked them off on her fingers. "One, I find a new Special Agent in Charge, and you will be reassigned to some other office. Or Two, I completely shut down the Office of Special Projects, and you will still be assigned to some other office. The only way of you staying here is if you choose a partner for you to work with. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Callen?"

"Yes, Hetty," Callen said meekly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 **

**That evening in the Hanna house. **

The phone rang and Michelle picked it up. She just said "Yes?" and then looked at her husband and told him, "Hun, it's for you."

He took the phone, and answered it, "Sam Hanna."

"Mr. Hanna, this is Henrietta Lange, Operations Manager for the Office of Special Projects at NCIS. I believe congratulations are in order for you." the voice on the other end of the line said.

"I have the job, Ms. Lange?" Sam asked, a huge smile breaking forth across his face.

"First of all, please call me Hetty. Technically, you do not have the job...yet. Mr Callen has been given a deadline of 12:00 noon tomorrow to approve of you as his partner. He will wait to the very last minute before choosing you."

"How are you so certain?" Sam asked

"I know my people, Mr. Hanna. You need to be at the boat house tomorrow waiting for him. Please bring a go bag with a change of clothes and something to wear to work out in our gym. These things you can place in your locker here at the Mission. You don't need to bring your personal sidearm. One will be issued to you here. Any questions you may have we can discuss when you arrive. I look forward to seeing you later tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Hanna."

"I will do that, Hetty, and thank you so much."

"It will be our pleasure to have you, Mr. Hanna. Welcome Aboard." Hetty said as she hung up.

Sam hung up the phone and went over to his wife. He picked her up off the ground and twirled her around a couple of times as he told her, "I got the job, Chelle. She said that I got the job."

With her head resting on his shoulder, Sam never saw the sly smile of satisfaction that broke out on Michelle's face.

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**The following day at the Mission**

Eric Beale came down from his lair in ops and went over to Callen. "Hetty asked if you would go with me to the boat house this morning. I have to make sure that those cameras are all synced to the system here."

Callen started to wonder, _*Did Hetty forget about the deadline she gave me yesterday, or was she trying to show me what life would be like for me if I don't comply?*_ He had just about convinced himself that Sam Hanna would be the one that he would at least try out as his partner. But he was damned if he let the little ninja control him. He would wait until the very last minute before calling the former Seal and letting him know he had the job.

Helping Eric took longer than Callen expected. He looked at his watch and saw he had about five minutes before Hetty's deadline was up. The agent pulled out his cell phone as he and Eric were leaving the boat house. Imagine his surprise to see Sam Hanna was already there, waiting for him outside, leaning up against his Challenger.

"I was just getting ready to call you." Callen said

"Hetty said you would wait until the last minute," Sam replied. "She told me to meet you here.

"Of course she did." Callen responded and thought to himself, _*Is there nothing that she does not know or have her little hand in.*_

He looked over at the tech and told him, "Eric, this is Sam. Sam, Eric. You can take off now, I'll ride in with Sam."

"Hi, Sam," Eric said over his shoulder as he continued to arrange the tools in the truck. "I'll see you back at the Mission, Callen. Thanks for the help this morning." With that he climbed into the maintenance truck and drove off.

Sam looked at Callen and asked him, "Does this mean that I have the job?"

"For now," Callen said. "We'll see how well it goes. Toss me your keys and I'll drive us over to the Mission."

Sam looked at him with a slightly angry look on his face. "This is Charlene. No one drives her but me."

The smaller man had a look of surprise on his face. "You named your car? I thought they only did that on stupid TV shows like The Dukes of Hazzard".

"They used a bunch of prop cars for shows like that. This is not a prop. It's not just a car. It is a vintage 1970 Challenger, handed down to me from my father. I have started to restore it, but I still have a long way to go." Sam said defensively.

"What have you done so far?" Callen asked.

"I changed out the engine, getting rid of the stock block and dropped in a V-8 magnum with a four barrel carb and duel exhaust system." the big man proudly told the agent about his baby as he ran his hand adoringly along the fender.

As he climbed into the passenger seat, Callen asked, "So what you still planning on doing to it."

"Her, not it." Sam reiterated. "Her name is Charlene. I have to redo her interior and give her a few new coats of paint."

"Seems like a lot of work for just a car, even though it is a sweet ride." Callen said.

Sam was starting to wonder, _*Could he could work with "just an agent" who couldn't appreciate such a fine car?*_ He started Charlene up and followed Callen's directions to the Mission, parking where Callen showed him

As he punched in the security code and opened the door, the agent turned to the former Seal and told him, "This is the Mission. Our location here is on a need to know basis. Most people have no idea that it is here, and we like to keep it that way."

Sam asked him then, "So it probably would be good to take a different route every day to come over here?"

Callen's opinion of the ex-Seal just went up a whole bunch. "That would be a good idea. I'm glad you picked up on that."

Sam was given a short tour of the Mission, and the two of them soon ended up in the armory and gym area. "There are a couple of things I need to check you out on if you are going to be my partner," Callen told him. "First of all, how well can you shoot?" He went to one of the gun lockers and pulled out a pistol and magazine. As he handed it to Sam, he asked, "You ever use a P228?"

Sam didn't even look at him, but started to check out the gun. "I'm familiar with the SIGs. We knew them as M11s and they were standard issue among Seals."

"This is yours, then. You want to try it out?" the agent asked

"You have a gun cleaning kit?" Sam asked in return. "I make it a habit to never fire a weapon I haven't cleaned myself."

Another point for the big guy. Callen pointed to a stack of boxes. "Over there. You can put it in your gun locker."

"What do you use for assault weapons?" Sam asked as he disassembled his weapon.

"Standard assault weapons are SIG SG 552s and for heavy firepower we use Heckler & Koch MP5A3s." Callen replied.

"We used MP7s, MP5Ns, and Mk23s – the SOCOM pistols, so I should have no problem with anything you have." Sam told him. He was already starting to reassemble the pistol as he looked up as Callen and asked, "What about shotguns?"

The only one we have here is a Mossberg 590. It belongs to Hetty, our boss. My friend Gibbs, Senior Agent In Charge at the Washington office, was a marine. He says that model is still shotgun of choice for gyrenes and swears that Hetty is still tough enough to make the grade in the corps.

Sam loaded the pistol, put on the protective gear, and waited until Callen had his on. Then he emptied the magazine at the target. As Callen pulled the paper target back, Sam started to clean his weapon again.

Callen looked at the target and saw that the holes were evenly divided between lethal head and heart shots, except for one in the shoulder. He looked at Sam and asked, "Miss one?"

Sam said, "No, just wanted to show you that I don't always need to shoot to kill."

Callen's fear of letting this big guy have his back was lessening by the minute.

The two of them moved on to the gym and locker room. "You can leave a change of clothes here in case you can't make it home to change," Callen explained to Sam. "You have a seperate locker for gym clothes, so you don't have to mix those in with good smelling ones. Don't worry about any special clothing that you may need for the ops that we may need to run. Hetty has an extensive wardrobe and dresses us out as needed. She will have to get your measurements to size you though."

"Now, you want to change so that I can see how much I am going to have to teach you about hand to hand combat," Callen said as he went to his locker and pulled off his sweatshirt.

As Sam started to change he let out a big laugh. "You're gonna teach me? This should really be interesting."

They started some mild grappling. In one of the moves Sam's hand slid up the side of Callen's arm and shoved the sleeve of his tee shirt up, disclosing the ragged scar that was there. Sam saw the scar and immediately became angry, thinking that Callen is just toying with him. _*This is where he tells me the job is no longer mine*_, Sam thought. He stopped fighting with Callen and backed up a couple of steps. "OK, you can stop playing around, and do what you want to me to pay me back. I won't stop you." he told the smaller man.

Callen stopped and looked at Sam. "What do you mean 'pay you back'?"

"You know what I'm talking about, You were the CIA agent that I pulled out of Libya."

"You were the Seal that pulled me out?" Callen asked in amazement. "You saved my life there. I'm just sorry that I never got the chance to thank you for it."

"Save your life? Hell, I almost killed you trying to keep you quiet. And all that pain I put you through just so that you could be moved. You were in so much pain you were cursing me out."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Callen replied. "From the time I was dropped off at the safe house until I woke up in sickbay after they operated on me, the only thing I can remember talking with me was a tub of ice cream that was begging me to eat it, and I was complaining that I couldn't get my fingers on the spoon. Now, you certainly don't look like that tub of ice cream, especially since it was vanilla."

Both of them started to laugh as they tried to get that picture out of their minds. Then they got serious, as they spent the next half hour sitting on the benches in the change room. Each one told the other what he thought had happened over those few days in Libya.

Sam explained to Callen about his fear that he had caused him to feel greater pain by what he had done to help him. Callen showed Sam his fears were groundless, because the only thing he came away with was the scar, and Sam didn't cause that to begin with.

Callen opened up just the smallest little bit and told Sam he was so afraid he would never get to pay the debt on his life. Sam told him that if they were partnered up they would each do whatever it took to keep the other alive, and never count the number of life debts each had on the other.

The end result of their little chat was an embrace and pat of the back by each one as they both decided that they could give it a shot of trying to work with each other.

Hetty saws the two of them walking together toward the bullpen. She smiled as she listened to the light banter that was going on between them and thought, _*Two of my children down here and one upstairs, it's a very good start. Now maybe we need to add a female into the group. I have always wanted a daughter.*_

As they went toward the bull pen, Hetty appeared behind them. "Mr. Hanna, I am Henrietta Lange."

Sam jumped a little, then turned around and told her, "I'm pleased to finally meet you, Hetty." and offered her his hand as he wondered to himself, _*Does she always pop up like that out of nowhere?*_

She turned toward Callen and asked him, "Are you sure you approve of Mr. Hanna as your partner, Mr. Callen?"

"Yes, Hetty, I think that he will work out well as my partner," was his response.

"No questions, fears, or reservations?" she continued.

"No, Hetty, I approve of him completely." Callen assured her.

Then Hetty turned to the former Seal, and asked him, "And you, Mr. Hanna, do you approve of Mr. Callen as your partner?"

"Yes, Hetty, I do." Sam answered.

"No questions, fears, or reservations on your part either?"

"None, Hetty, full approval." "Then, Mr. Hanna, please fill out these forms and return them to me as soon as possible." and gave him all the paperwork he needed to become an agent. "I will give you your badge and swear you in so that you can go to work full time here.

"Thank you, Hetty," Sam said as he took the papers and looked at the desks there in the bullpen.

"Take the desk right across from me," Callen told him. "You can make that one your own. This way I can keep an eye on you and keep you out of trouble around here."

Sam threw the papers down on his desk and walked right up to Callen. He stood like a statue, with both hands on his hips as he stared down the smaller man. He tried as hard as he could to look angry and imposing, but it was impossible with that great big smile on his face as he said, "What do you mean? You're gonna keep an eye on me. I was saving sorry butts like yours for a long time now." Then, looking like he was peeking around to Callen's backside, he continued, "I don't see your rear end to be any different from them."

Callen turned to hide his backside from Sam as he said, "Of course you saved lots of sorry butts, but purely hypothetical, you would never, never risk your own to go into someplace, say, like Libya, to pull mine out after a secret mission, would you? But even if you did, then neither of us would ever mention it to the other, because officially, it would never have happened and neither of us would have ever been there."

Sam laughed as he responded, "Nah, it wasn't me that saved the butt of any spook there who had a ripped up arm and a mind that was burned out on fever. I mean, who in their right mind would try to rescue a ghost? And hypothetically, if it would have been me, do you think that I would ever let you forget that I saved your sorry little butt even before you chose me for this job?"

Hetty overheard the banter of the two and thought to herself, _*Bugger, they are already starting to sound like an old married couple. I'll bet they will keep score on how many times each of them saves the other. Oh well.*_ She just raised one eyebrow and sighed as she went back to her work. With Callen as her Chief Agent in Charge, and the former Seal approved as his partner, she had a feeling that this was going to be a very interesting place to work.

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I want to thank everyone who has stayed with me on this journey to the past. This was written for the NCIS:LA Magazines Callen's Corner Challenge #4. There are several stories that have been written for this challenge. [Each entry will have **Callen's Corner Challenge #4** in the summery.] I have read them as they have been posted, and they all are excellent. Please leave a review for **ALL** the entrys. If you leave the best review, you could win the review part of the challenge. Good luck to all the contestants in the Writing and Review Challenge.


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